Living Green Expo 2008

Years ago, Gary Larson created this "Far Side" cartoon:


I've saved it for years (hmmm... I guess that's more like going on two decades). Why?

I think I found it amusing to entertain the notion that the people who are not part of the solution (and are, therefore, as the saying goes, part of the problem) would recognize themselves enough to organize a convention.

Anyway, in honor of the 2008 Living Green Expo, I decided to inaugurate a new category on the blog today: Part of the Solution.

I realize that some of my posts don't fit so well in the categories I've established: particularly all the ones about local food, energy efficiency or alternative energy, and so one. Basically, the environmental side of things. So I'm going to go back and recategorize those, and I'll be writing more on the topic in the future.

For today, just a brief bit of praise for the Living Green Expo, which continues tomorrow at the State Fair Grandstand. I've been going to the Expo since it started, and each year it gets bigger. It's amusing to see larger corporations joining up, but the event hasn't lost its soul.

A lot of first for me at Living Green. I saw my first hybrid cars there. I learned about the Vast landscape paver system, made from recycled tires and plastic. I've seen a neat wooden "green awning" that allows perennial vines to grow above your windows to shade the house in the summer, but lets sun in when they die back in the winter (from EnergyScapes). I found out about the Minnesota Energy Challenge, which is a great example of using the Web to encourage behavioral change and make connections among people.

Today I saw or found out about:

• Verde Strategies, which refurbishes 55 gallon food drums into rain barrels
• By the Yard, a Jordan, Minnesota-based small business that makes patio furniture from recycled milk jugs. The furniture is guaranteed not to fade, split or need maintenance for 50 years.
• Windustry, where I picked up a cool poster and found out a bit about them.
• The small Wisconsin company that makes Bovine Basic, an anaerobically digested cow manure that can be used as a soil amendment. The digester puts out two end products: reusable methane gas and Bovine Basic, which has a fertilizer equivalent of 2-3-3, if I remember correctly.
• The Zenn car. I love those neighborhood electric vehicles!
  
  
  
  
• And, oh yeah -- the Minnesota DNR had some great information. I picked up a couple of nice brochures on native woodland and prairie plants, and an issue of their Minnesota Conservation Volunteer mini-magazine on creating biofuels from grasses.

Just in closing, I have to say sometimes I love this state. Thanks to the thoughtful people in our state government who have worked very hard for a long time to put on a great event that really does make a difference. It's a good example of how our common resources (better known as taxes) can be used for our general betterment.